Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, on the latter point, no, not at this juncture. On the noble Lord's basic point, roads are of course essential to our economy and that is why we propose to spend£1.7 billion over the next two years on at least23 major schemes. But I want give the House the assurance that we intend to lock in the benefits of motorway widening by effective traffic management so that we do not produce additional congestion in due course.

Lord Razzall: My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to confirm in one of the Houses of Parliament the comment by the Secretary of State this morning on "Today" that it is accepted by Her Majesty's Government that a subsidy will be required to the Post Office network after 2008? Will he also indicate that when the Government make their Statement to both Houses with regard to the future of the post office network, postponing or abandoning the cancellation of the Post Office card account in 2010 will be on the agenda? Bearing in mind that there are more than 13,000 post offices but Royal Mail's view is that only 4,000 are required to deliver a proper Royal Mail service, will the Government consider allowing altering the terms of post office licences so that they can deal with mail other than that of the Royal Mail?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, the disruption of gas to Georgia is a very serious matter, as it was when it happened for the first time last January. There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the two explosions that occurred more or less simultaneously and cut both pipelines. It is absolutely imperative that the sanctions currently exercised against the Georgian people are not continued, that normal diplomatic relations are resumed and that on Georgia's side, some of the actions that are unquestionably provocative and unhelpful in relation to Russia are reconsidered, as has been repeatedly requested.

Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, we are on well trodden ground. The proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, was debated three times during the progress of the Civil Aviation Bill; it was debated in Committee on the present Bill; it was the subject of an Unstarred Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway; and it was debated last week in a slightly different form in an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Garden, to the Armed Forces Bill. Anyone might be forgiven for wondering what there is left to say. But a number of unanswered questions remain, and the basis for the noble Baroness's anxiety is as clear now as when she first expressed it. Our discussions over that period may simply have deferred the time when we have to take a decision.
	The revisions to the amendment that she originally tabled reflect two factors that emerged from our earlier debates. First, as she indicated, and as the noble Lord, Lord Garden, mentioned, there are divergent views about how far existing statutory powers are sufficient to ensure that the United Kingdom complies with its international obligations under the torture convention. Secondly, there is—so far as I am concerned, at least—an uneasy suspicion that there is a culture in some circles of not wanting to ruffle any feathers, particularly American feathers.
	I am delighted that the noble Baroness has redrafted the amendment so that there would now be not merely a power to enter the aircraft, but a duty to do so. So where United Kingdom facilities may be being abused, the provision is no longer permissive, but mandatory.
	Perhaps it would help to spend a moment clarifying what is now common ground and what remains debateable. I accept unreservedly that the Government totally condemn torture for the purpose of interrogation or for any other purpose. It hardly needs saying that I accept without hesitation that my noble friend on the Front Bench would not knowingly be complicit in the use of torture by the agents of this or any other country. I echo the gratitude expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, for the willingness of my noble friend and her officials to discuss this in order to assist in narrowing the area of dispute. I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that agents of this country have made use of torture, but what is in question is whether the Government have taken all the steps reasonably open to them to ensure so far as possible that no facilities have been made available to assist others with less scrupulous standards to subject anyone to the risk of torture. The torture convention imposes an obligation on states and individuals not to be complicit in acts of torture, an obligation of which the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, reminded us last week. If that gives rise to a number of questions on which debate is not concluded, perhaps we may be forgiven for at least adverting to them.
	First, is there evidence that facilities in this country have been abused to assist rendition to a destination where there was a risk of torture? The evidence is overwhelming that the actions of the CIA have led to people suffering torture. I regret having to state that so bluntly, as some of my friends are employed by the CIA. I am certainly not suggesting that every official of the CIA is complicit in the practice, and I appreciate the difficulty of controlling agents operating in foreign countries.
	We examined some of the evidence in the debates on the Civil Aviation Bill on 28 March and we reviewed it again in Committee on this Bill on 4 July. It is also reviewed in the Amnesty International report Partners in Crime. It was dealt with in some detail in the Council of Europe report by Senator Dick Marty and it was summarised by the Secretary General, Mr Terry Davis. It was even set out in the report Torture by Proxy: International and Domestic Law Applicable to "Extraordinary Renditions" by the committee on international human rights of the New York Bar and by the United States Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. Furthermore, in the United States there is considerable concern about the practice.
	I am grateful to Liberty for its very helpful briefing on this subject, which was prepared in anticipation of our debates on the Bill. Of course the evidence does not establish that the facilities in the United Kingdom were used in the course of rendition. Its relevance is that it establishes the propensity of some CIA agents unscrupulously to practise extraordinary rendition—and any country offering facilities to aircraft operated by the CIA would be turning the proverbial blind eye if it ignored the record of those with whom it was dealing.
	Even the United Kingdom is confronted by uncomfortable questions that need to be answered. Both the Council of Europe and the Amnesty reports referred to the case of Bisher Al-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna, which led to proceedings in the High Court for judicial review. They were arrested in Gambia, apparently in consequence of their travel arrangements supplied by United Kingdom officials, and were then sent by the CIA to Afghanistan. It is important to establish, if possible, whether the United Kingdom officials who supplied that information were aware of what was intended. Perhaps my noble friend will address that question when she replies.
	The second question that requires to be answered is what precautions, in the light of the CIA's known record, can and should be taken to ensure that the United Kingdom is not used unwittingly in extraordinary rendition. Aircraft are not transparent; the only way to ascertain who is on board and in what circumstances is to enter the aircraft and look. An aircraft in state service—an expression that includes aircraft in military, customs or police service—is not entitled to fly over or land on the territory of another state without authorisation. I must confess that until the debate last week I had derived some comfort from that, as I had assumed that authorisation would be required prior to each such flight and it would be known when an aircraft was operated by the CIA. But, in the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Garden, my noble friend Lord Drayson informed a startled House—at col. 440—that separate authorisation is not required, as there is a system of what is euphemistically called "diplomatic clearance", which means that someone has given what appears to be blanket permission, and specific clearance by the airfield authorities is not required. I would be grateful if my noble friend will spell that out in a little more detail.
	Does someone in this country have to be notified if it is proposed that a CIA-operated aircraft will fly over United Kingdom territory and make use of airport facilities, or is it done on a "Don't bother to mention it" basis for the whole category of military aircraft? Does it apply to all military aircraft or only to those of the USA? Is there a requirement to provide information on the purpose and destination of the flight? Does someone decide whether a specific flight calls for further inquiry? If so, who? Or does diplomatic clearance mean that no one asks any questions?
	Of course, it is not suggested that every aircraft operated by the CIA should be searched. It is accepted that there is a stage where investigation may appear as harassment and that that may occasion friction with the United States. The proposal is that an aircraft should be liable to a requirement to land if the Secretary of State is aware of intelligence that it is being or may be used for unlawful rendition. Of course, there is room for discussion about the standard of intelligence required. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, helpfully provided an analysis of that question in our debate on 18 July, at col. 1220. But that problem is not incapable of resolution between us.
	If there is such intelligence, surely the United Kingdom is under an international obligation to make inquiries before permitting such an aircraft to proceed. If the aircraft is required to land, there is surely no difficulty in having an official or constable available to conduct a search. The inconvenience to the aircraft is surely minimal by comparison with the risk that someone may be tortured.
	The remaining question is the one referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, as to whether there exists a power under existing domestic law to enter and search an aircraft. The Government maintain that the whole proposal is unnecessary because the statutory power exists already. The noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, has already addressed that matter; we have debated it more than once and I shall not weary your Lordships by rehearsing the argument again now. However, it would be helpful if, when my noble friend replies, she would say whether that is the only stumbling block that the Government see. If they are convinced that there is a need for something more than that, the other matters, which we have debated at such length, do not really prevent their acceding to the proposal. In any event, the question now largely falls because the proposal is that there should be a mandatory requirement, not merely a power. What troubles some of us is that this country may become complicit in these appalling practices, however unwittingly, because no one cared enough to ask the right questions and to conduct a simple search.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, has shown clearly how a coach and horses can be driven through the good intentions and political correctness of this country. I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary has stated on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that detention without trial is ineffective against terrorism. That is a small step forward, but I point out that indefinite detention continues at Guantanamo Bay.
	I go further and draw attention to an article in today's International Herald Tribune, which describes the sad case of Mr Sami al-Hajj, an employeeof Al-Jazeera television, who was arrested in Afghanistan and is still, five years later, in detention without trial at Guantanamo. I also point out that, following the signature of a new Bill in the United States, it is not clear to what extent the right of habeas corpus still applies in that country. It is also not clear whether extended sleep deprivation is a legitimate method of preparing people for interrogation within the United States. I suggest to your Lordships that the amendment is for the removal of doubt. It is therefore especially appropriate for Third Reading and I support it strongly.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, first, I thank noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, and my noble and learned friend Lord Archer for showing me the courtesy of talking to me about these issues in a little more detail before today. I am very grateful to them, as I am to all noble Lords for the care with which they have approached this issue. I confirm that I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garden, that we have total cross-party agreement on this issue. There is nothing between us.
	I also understand why there is anxiety about this issue. As a result, I do not hesitate to repeat what I have said on behalf of the Government on several occasions—that we have not approved, and will not approve, a policy of facilitating the transfer of individuals through United Kingdom airspace or territory, including overseas territories, where there are substantial grounds for believing that those individuals would face a real risk of torture. I know that all Members of your Lordships' House are of one mind on this point, but it is important that we understand how we are currently protected. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, and my noble and learned friend Lord Archer said about the question mark over possible gaps in conventions. The noble Lord, Lord Garden, asked whether the gaps were a perception or a reality and said that we must be sure. I hope that I will be able to explain to your Lordships that the anxiety of the House on this issue is not merited.
	Again, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Garden, that our position on rendition is clearly understood by our international partners, in particular—I say this for clarity, not emphasis—the United States. Again, I hear what my noble and learned friend Lord Archer says about people being worried about ruffling American feathers. I assure the House that I have never suffered from such a disability; it is not one that has afflicted me, as I think my visit to the United States to discuss our concerns over extradition has perhaps demonstrated to our American colleagues—with some success, if I may humbly suggest to the House. We are not resistant to making that clear. Our international partners have clearly understood the message about where we stand, and it is right that I make that clear.
	The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, asks how this has been demonstrated, whether we have had a review, and what our position has been. Again, I draw the attention of the House to the Written Ministerial Statement made by the then Foreign Secretary on 20 January, which set out the results of the extensive review of official records going back to May 1997. That review identified four cases where the United States requested permission to render one or more detainees through the United Kingdom or overseas territories. That is what it promised to do, and what it appears it did do on those occasions. Records show that the Government refused permission in two cases, but granted it in the other two. In the two cases where the request was granted, the individuals were transferred to stand trialfor terrorism charges in the United States and subsequently convicted. That is the context in which we must examine the proposals in the amendment in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza, the noble Lord, Lord Garden, my noble and learned friend and others.
	On the first point arising from the amendment, if we could create a mechanism to render unlawful rendition impossible we would do so. However, as this amendment does not create any powers that we do not already have in practice, perhaps I may respectfully suggest that it would have no effect whatever on the likelihood of unlawful rendition taking place. As my noble and learned friend Lord Archer said, there has been a divergence in views. I should therefore like, with your Lordships' permission and to make it plain for others who may read this debate, to take a little time to explain why.
	The second point in the amendment—

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the amendment deals with the case where it is not practicable to secure a warrant. However, it should always be practicable to secure one because there is a 24-hour opportunity to do so. One gets the warrant; the piece of paper may come later, but the warrant should always be immediately available. I respectfully suggest that that is not something which need be an impediment. How these things work in practice is always fairly opaque, and I am happy to clarify the position for the noble Baroness. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who I see is in her place, has probably granted many such applications when sitting as a magistrate.
	Section 17 of PACE is also relevant because it provides that a constable may enter any premises for the purposes of arresting a person for an indictable offence. This provision would be relevant in any case involving an ongoing offence such as, for example, false imprisonment. Again, as with Section 8, there must be reasonable grounds to believe that the person being sought is on the premises. For the purposes of these provisions, an aircraft would be a premises. That is a somewhat interesting legal construction, but it is where we are. This means that if there was credible intelligence that a person was on an aircraft and was being unlawfully rendered to places where there were substantial grounds to believe that they would face a real risk of torture, there would be a legal basis to intervene under Section 17 as well Section 8 of PACE. Section 23 of PACE confirms that the references to "any premises" in Sections 8 and 17 do include an aircraft.
	Noble Lords have already referred to the convention. This of course is paragraph (c) ofArticle 3 of the Chicago Convention which permits state aircraft to overfly territory of other states only with permission and on the terms of the state whose territory is to be used. Any flight of whatever nature not taking place on these terms would be contrary to the convention and could, at least in theory, be required to land and be searched under the powers I have mentioned.
	I hope that I have been able to satisfy your Lordships that there is no legal gap in police powers to investigate suspected acts of unlawful rendition. But of course the real question may be practical rather than legal, as I tried to explain on 4 July when the Bill was being examined in Committee. That is at col. 217 of the Official Report. I shall not repeat the points I made then. With your Lordships' indulgence, suffice it to say that if the security and law enforcement agencies ever received intelligence that could give rise to the types of action envisaged in the amendment, and on a timescale which would permit such an action, they would already be able to undertake it. But the chances of that happening are negligible.
	I am conscious that we have spent a great deal of time discussing this issue. However, I felt that I needed to give my noble and learned friend Lord Archer a specific answer on the Al-Rawi and El-Banna question. First, I am pleased to note that the Court of Appeal has confirmed the propriety of the Government's actions with regard to its decision. Secondly, as regards the point raised by my noble and learned friend, I can confirm that the UK did not request the detention of Mr Al-Rawi or Mr El-Banna in the Gambia and played no role in their transfer to Bagram and Guantanamo Bay. I hope that that satisfies the House.
	I am conscious that this issue has caused concern and I am grateful for this opportunity to better explain our position and why we think the anxieties expressed by the House—although we understand them—are not founded in fact. I therefore hope the noble Baroness will feel content to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, I rise to move Amendment No. 6 and speak to Amendments Nos. 7 to 11, which are grouped with it. These amendments were tabled on Report, but were not moved. The amendments would retain the proposal that a local authority should be able to enter into parenting contracts or to apply for parenting orders. It would, however, remove the proposal to give these powers to registered social landlords. As we said in Committee, the latter suggestion was opposed in the strongest terms by all agencies working with children and families as it was perceived as being a highly inappropriate role for the RSLs to play—and we agree with them.
	Families who are really struggling to manage or control their children—something many of us here may have experienced from time to time—need highly skilled, sensitive and professional help, particularly when a parenting contract is being considered and even more so when a parenting order may be necessary. Parents can easily feel resentful, inadequate and defensive while being desperate for things to change and careful work must be done with both parents and children. Imposing restrictions on the one hand and working constructively with both parents and children on the other and knowing what resources and support are available, requires particular skill and knowledge which is simply not part of a landlord's role or training—and nor should it be.
	However, as I mentioned in Committee, there is a lot to be said for RSLs having a working partnership with local authorities, and housing officers could appropriately be involved in an application for an order when this is done with other agencies who would be the professionals able to work directly with families and an order. This kind of inter-agency working is the right model to be developing, using different knowledge and expertise to solve problems which are invariably extremely complex and difficult to manage. The National Housing Federation recognises that it would not be appropriate for it to become the responsible officer to give effect to a parenting order. We wholeheartedly agree with this view and hope that the Government will too. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, first, as I have said on a number of occasions, I understand the noble Baroness's passion about keeping children safe and making sure that families have the best possible support to help them to change poor behaviour. I think she will accept that she and I have no disagreement on any of those issues. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished and one on which we all work. The amendments would drive a significant hole through our policy of allowing more agencies to enter into parenting contracts and apply for parenting orders, as set out in the respect action plan. I know that in one sense that is precisely what the noble Baroness would like.
	Clauses 23 and 24 enable not only a local authority but a registered social landlord to enter into a parenting contract or seek a parenting order in respect of a parent of a child or young person if they have reason to believe that the child or young person has engaged or, in the case of contracts, is likely to engage, in anti-social behaviour. The noble Baroness will know that on a number of occasions social landlords are prevailed on by neighbours and others to remove families because of the disturbance and chagrin that they cause to their neighbours. Such evictions can lead to desperate consequences for the children housed in such homes, such as movement from school, disjunction of family relationships and instability. We know that frequent changes of home, when done erratically, can materially undermine the well-being and health of the child, so to minimise such changes is of crucial importance.
	Currently, 52 per cent of social housing is owned by registered social landlords, and they therefore play an important and growing role in managing housing and wider neighbourhoods, including tackling anti-social behaviour. I am sure the noble Baroness would accept with me that it would be better to have an intervention that would perhaps prevent, or at the very least delay, an eviction if behaviour of an anti-social nature could be contained to enable the family to remain in situ. As set out in the respect action plan, the Government are determined to increase the levels of parenting support available to all parents and also to ensure that those who are unlikely to seek help voluntarily receive help through formal contracts and court orders.
	I remind the House that parenting contracts and parenting orders are early interventions, which are supposed to nip problems in the bud. I respectfully suggest to the noble Baroness that preventing registered social landlords entering into parenting contracts or seeking parenting orders, as these amendments would do, makes no sense when they already have much more coercive powers at their disposal.
	Registered social landlords can seek the eviction of a family without any further ado if they are satisfied about the anti-social behaviour and they can already enter into an acceptable behaviour contract with a family. They can also seek anti-social behaviour orders and injunctions both against their tenants and others in the community. It is surely illogical to prevent them entering into arrangements that may help to remove the need for stronger sanctions against these families.
	If action is not taken, there is a significant risk of families losing their homes or being taken to court. We want to remove one level of intervention and help social landlords think more creatively about other solutions that may be available to them before they reach for eviction or for more coercive sanctions. That would be a better way of protecting children than proceeding more quickly to eviction, if there is a sensible, viable and workable alternative.
	We have made it clear that registered social landlords must be able to work in partnership with specialist agencies. These clauses allow for an official of a registered social landlord to be eligible to undertake the role of responsible officer. But the registered social landlord may well want to nominate another person from a specialist agency who is better placed and has the requisite specialist skills in areas of parenting support, and the Bill will enable the registered social landlord to do that.
	It is important to be clear that parenting contracts and orders are not designed to criminalise parents but are instead concerned with providing support to parents to enable them to guide and protect their children more effectively. It is crucial to stress that, in addition to any constraints imposed by the guidance, parenting contracts must be agreed by the parents and parenting orders are subject to approval by the courts. These are vital safeguards in preventing an overbearing approach.
	I know that the noble Baroness agrees with me in commending the good practice that is starting to take place in CDRP areas of multi-agency working, shared good practice and appropriate specialist support. We would expect that in many areas there would be a multi-disciplinary approach with the appropriate agency being invited to join in partnership to deliver appropriate intervention.
	I understand the noble Baroness's anxiety, but I do not believe that she would rather wish a child to be evicted with the family than provide an opportunity to explore a more creative resolution to what to others may seem an intractable and unpleasant situation. Given that reassurance, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment, so that we can do some joint good work.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I rise to speak to the whole series of amendments regarding how we will deliver inspection. I hope I have made plain on behalf of the Government throughout these debates that our starting point has always been that the best way to provide a modern, joined-up inspection regime for the criminal justice system is to have one single inspectorate rather than several. We remain convinced that a unified inspection regime would support frontline staff by minimising the additional work that inspection involves and provide an enhanced capacity to challenge whether the system is in practice giving the public the best possible service by looking more effectively at the system as a whole.
	The Government remain committed to a simplified inspection landscape across the public sector as a whole. But at the same time we recognise the concerns expressed by the House about how that regime is and should be delivered. It is perhaps only appropriate that I say that I was disappointed and perhaps a little surprised by some of the comments made when we debated the matter on Report. There was almost an unsaid implication that the Government were creating a justice, community, safety and custody inspectorate precisely with the intention of diminishing the strong voice of the prisons inspectorate.
	We have made clear all along that that was not our purpose. If anything, we wanted to enhance the voice of the inspectorate to give even greater power, acuity and effectiveness so that we could deliver not just that which we currently do but much more. It is perhaps right if I put on record that Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has made absolutely clear to me that she has never ascribed such a motive to the Government's proposal. It is perhaps as well that I say that for the purposes of the record.
	We have therefore looked very carefully at how we can deliver that which all sides wanted but in a way that might be more acceptable. We always made clear that we wanted any new arrangement to combine the existing strengths, which I have just described, and the expertise of the five inspectorates with the benefits of a more joined-up approach, but felt we could not guarantee the delivery of those benefits without statutory provisions.
	However, discussions have taken place during the past few days between Ministers and the five existing chief inspectors and we have been impressed by the chief inspectors' determination to work towards the benefits of joined-up working. As part of those discussions, chief inspectors have entered into four commitments.
	First, they have re-affirmed their commitment to the streamlined and modernised inspection programme as set out in the policy statement of November 2005, and to the Government's 10 principles of public service inspection.
	Secondly, they have agreed to develop a joint business planning process to provide a framework for joint inspection work to be developed from priorities indicated by the three Ministers. They will produce the first joint plan for 2007-08. Early priorities will include an enhanced thematic programme and clarity about how the inspectorates intend to work towards mainstream inspection of end-to-end processes across agency boundaries. An important early step will be the creation of a common secretariat drawn from existing staff to support that work.
	Thirdly, they have agreed to review the use of resources and back-office support to identify any efficiency gains which can be redeployed to joint working. Finally, they have agreed to report quarterly to Ministers on the progress of those arrangements.
	These proposals have convinced the Government that we can achieve our objectives for the criminal justice system more quickly and effectively by focusing our efforts on strengthening and improving joint working across the inspectorates, rather than on proposals for organisational merger at this time. That is underpinned by the clear commitments of each of the chief inspectors to deliver real improvements in joint working, as I have just outlined.
	We therefore now propose to withdraw the bulk of Part 4. In its place, we will apply to each of the existing inspectorates the provisions in Part 4 for delegation of functions, inspection programmes and frameworks, gatekeeping in respect of inspections by other inspectorates, co-operation, joint action and assistance for other public authorities. That will provide the statutory underpinning for the more efficient and effective joint working to which we know that the inspectorates are committed.
	I wish to make clear that the amendments do not change the existing remits of the respective inspectors; the additional responsibilities originally provided for in the Bill do not obtain. They are simply intended to provide ways in which they can exercise their current functions more co-operatively and flexibly. I do not think that there can be any doubt that that is a desirable aim. Indeed, that view has been expressed by many and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in particular, has been a fearsome advocate for such joint working for some time.
	To ensure that this is made clear, we have acknowledged the concern that has been expressed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights about the ability of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons to continue to make unannounced inspections, by providing expressly that the requirement to produce inspections programmes and frameworks does not prevent unannounced visits, either by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons or any of the other inspectors. That is the new provision, which explains matters more clearly.
	We will keep these changes under review and expect to see early progress; for example, in joint business planning. As part of this, we will be looking further at the merger proposals and intend to keep under active review the option of re-introducing legislation. To that end, we will press ahead with work already begun in order to achieve our policy aspiration of a more joined-up inspection regime for the justice system by April 2008.
	Some minor technical adjustments may have to be made, given that we now have five separate inspectors, but the substance of all the amendments will remain unchanged. I hope that the amendments will enable the House to feel, first, that the Government have stayed true to the principle of independent and rigorous inspections, and, secondly, that we have been able to deliver the joined-up additional strengthening that we sought, and in a way that enables the House to feel content that the nature of the inspection is better assured. I beg to move.

Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that statement. May I say how grateful I am, as I am sure many other Members of this House are, for what she has said, and for the depth that the Government have clearly gone into with the inspectors, who are the people most concerned about what she has just described? Before our debates in this House, the inspectors were feeling somewhat separated from the process, which is thoroughly unfortunate.
	Throughout this process, the Minister has mentioned her keenness for joint inspections. That has been very much at the heart of the work of the inspectors for a very long time, as I know myself. In 1999, we recommended having the secretariat that the Minister has just announced, and we asked for regular meetings with Ministers, neither of which were given. I am therefore particularly pleased that, in the statement released yesterday by the Home Secretary, he told all five inspectors that the Government will want to meet them regularly to ensure that satisfactory progress is being made and to provide them with clear direction about the Government's priorities across the criminal justice system. That will be wholly helpful and positive. The inspectors have been hoping for that for a very long time, and I am delighted that it is there.
	It would be churlish to question a great deal of what has been said, and I do not intend to do so. I welcome what has been done, because the Government have maintained the strength of the inspectorates unencumbered. Indeed, the strength of the inspection of different elements of the criminal justice system is the aggregation of the separate parts, not the merger of them. By being undiminished, they will be able to contribute far more strongly to the process that the Minister so clearly wants and this House so clearly endorses than if they had been weakened by the compromise that is inevitably part of a merger. I obviously accept and understand that the Government will want to keep the process under review and I am sure that the inspectors will want to do that.
	But I beg the Minister to accept what has been said on a number of occasions in this House. The burden on the people administering the services is not that imposed by the inspectorates—which in the case of the prisons inspectorate is once every five years—but that imposed by the plethora of regulators, auditors and other organisations which impose themselves far more regularly and in a far more demanding way than do the inspectorates. Inspection is a different process from regulation and audit and has a very particular purpose. It is hugely important that this should not be confused in the whole process of looking at the criminal justice system.
	The Minister has said many times that it is no part of the Government's intention to restrict, limit or water down the independence, rigour and vigour necessary to undertake robust and effective inspections. But there are one or two elements that I should like to mention concerning the detail. Of course, in the hurry with which this was produced, it has not been refined. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that refinement can follow, particularly when the Bill moves to the other House. For example, I am concerned about one point that has not been made, particularly in respect of prisons inspection. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, made the point that prisons inspection certainly must have an independent head—not someone derived from the Prison Service or Home Office. I am interested that in an answer on a specific question on this, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that when the post of chief inspector came up, there would be no bar to people from the Prison Service or Home Office applying. But I shall be interested to see what happens when Anne Owers retires in March 2008 and whether the principle until now of the person not coming fromthe Prison Service or the Home Office is observed in the selection of the new chief inspector.
	I am interested in the proposed new Schedule A1(2)(2), which states:
	"Before preparing an inspection programme or an inspection framework the Chief Inspector shall consult",
	a whole list of people, including some who I never would have thought of consulting over my prison programme inspection, such as the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, the Crown Prosecution Service, Court Administration and the Audit Commission or the Auditor General for Wales. I hope that this is something on which the Minister will consider refinement. The prisons inspector has to prepare the programme for the inspection of prisons and others can come around it. That programme would include consultation and liaison with all the other elements who need to take part. That is what happens now, but I am concerned that the proposal might go too far.
	Under proposed new Schedule A1(2)(3), the content of or the way in which inspections are to be conducted will be subject to ministerial direction, which is contrary to what has been said many times. Ministers have been at pains to protest that they will not specify either the content or the way in which inspections are conducted. I beg the Minister to realise that—I speak from the voice of experience—if you want an inspection conducted, you leave that to the chief inspector and do not try to micromanage it. By all means, say what the programme might be and limit it, but please do not try to micromanage.
	What I conclude from all this is that the Government are now where the inspectors were in 1999, with dedicated inspectorates committing themselves to relevant joint working and consulting with each other as appropriate without reducing the potency of their single-service focus, which is so important for Ministers if they are going to deliver what is required. I fully accept that additional things have to happen now. For example, I see the inspector of constabulary consulting with the inspector of prisons to see at what stage the inspector of prisons might conduct inspections of police cells, and I see the same thing for the courts administration in the inspection of court cells. That is absolutely right, but there is one thing missing which I would beg the Minister to consider—and it is something I have raised many times. I refer to the use of the word "regular". At present, the inspection of prisons is carried out once every five years. That raises timing and resource implications because the inspector has got to deliver that inspection every five years. It would be helpful to everyone concerned if that regularity could be included at this stage. It is a point that was made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and it applies as much to places of detention as it does to prisons.
	My reason for raising this is that unless that is an absolute requirement on the Chief Inspector of Prisons, there is a danger that the requirement to carry out the additional tasks such as the inspection of police cells, court cells and escorts, will eat into the frequency of prison inspection unless extra resources are provided. A balance has to be struck here. The Minister has assured us that resources are going to be maintained at their current level, and that is fine for the current level of operation, but additional operations will need either extra resources or they will have to be conducted at the expense of something else. I am sure that that is not something that the Minister or anyone in the House would resist.
	Finally, I am really pleased that, in talking to the chief inspectors, the Government have said:
	"We have recognised the serious concerns about aspects of our proposals and agree with you that the focus of our efforts should now be on finding ways to strengthen and improve joint working rather than on proposals for organisational merger".
	Each time we debated this issue, the whole House spoke, not just one part of it, and I recognise particularly the courage of Members on the government Benches who spoke and voted as they did the other night. In thanking the Minister, I have to say that I am enormously encouraged by where this Bill has now got to.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, as I have tabled amendments in this group I shall speak at this point rather than wait until the end as I would otherwise have done. I support the government amendments, but with the reservations that have been so clearly set out by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. We hope that they might form part of the refinements to which the Minister referred, and we understand that these matters had to be rushed because the Government were pressed for time in producing a different approach to the way the inspectorates are going to run themselves. I am also aware that there are significant rules about what amendments may or may not be part of the process when the Bill reaches another place, but we have shown goodwill over the past 24 hours and I know that we will do our best within the rules to continue to show that goodwill.
	However, it is right that I put on the record a comment about the difficulties that the Opposition and other Members around the House have faced as a result of the nature of the process we have all been going through. We were unable to signal our disquiet on the matters referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, because the 20 pages of government amendments were made available to noble Lords just minutes before the 5 o'clock deadline for tabling Third Reading amendments. We therefore could not see them before the deadline for tabling our amendments expired. Noble Lords will be aware that manuscript amendments are not permitted at Third Reading, and therefore noble Lords around the House were prevented from tabling any amendments to the government amendments today, and that has actually prevented some of the refinements being brought forward today, which could have been a very practical way of progressing. It is clearly not a satisfactory process—I am talking about the process, not the government amendments—and perhaps the Procedure Committee might take note of the problem for future discussion. This could well be an example of where our Third Reading rules are too restrictive rather than not restrictive enough, as some have argued in the past.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was right to set out in detail the three issues on which he has some difficulty within the government amendments, and I support him on all of them. The main point today is that it is clear that the Government have abandoned their plans to create the mega inspectorate that we believe would have threatened the independence and authority of the prisons inspectorate. That is most welcome. It has been a rocky road to this destination but the Government have listened to the arguments put to them in this House at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. Not one Member of the House spoke in support of the Minister on any of those occasions. Passionate and informed opposition came from around the House, including from the Minister's own Benches. It came from those who are very loyal to Her Majesty's Government and for whom it must have been very hard indeed to express their dissent. I suspect that their contribution was very influential.
	I spoke at some length both at Second Reading and in Committee, but I recognised at Report stage, at the end of a long debate, that others had expressed views that covered the whole gamut of the subject so forcefully and persuasively that it was not the time for me to go on at length—so I did not. That meant that I did not speak to the amendments that were in my name at that stage. I said that I would bring them back, and here they are. In fact, they have been tabled by both the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and myself. Again, however, I do not need to speak to them because the Minister, in her wisdom, in her amendments today has adopted the approach that I had hoped for. My amendments are there to probethe wisdom of going ahead with the whole of the organisational structure, and I homed in on the questions about the constabulary—but that all now goes by the board.
	I can therefore be very brief today and add just a couple of points. The result of the Division last week indicated the strength of feeling in the House onthis issue. It showed that this House believes that the Government's choice of structural change for the prisons inspectorate was simply wrong. The Minister referred in her speech to her feeling that perhaps some questioned the principled stand that the Government were taking and the motives behind it. We were not questioning motives; we were questioning the outcome of what the Government were trying to achieve. I do not know what the Government's intentions were—that is entirely for them—but the noble Baroness has steadfastly presented them as being to improve the management structures. Whatever the intentions behind the original proposal, there was agreement that it would have damaged the authority and independence of the inspectorate.
	I argued in Committee that there are alternative, preferable options for improving its operation within the criminal justice family without damage to the inspectorate itself. In particular, like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I record the work done by the chief inspectors back in 1999 to have a joint secretariat. Like him, I am very pleased that today the Government have accepted that it is right to go down the alternative, more appropriate route of reform, which should focus on strengthening and improving joint working but will not involve organisational merger.
	Finally, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on his eloquent and determined leadership throughout this long process. All the inspectorates will have a stronger future as a result.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister. The only criticism I had about the Bill was that the issue of inspection did not have adequate time for discussion in the other place. Those of us who often refer to the intention of the other place were rather short in trying to obtain the views of Members of Parliament. There has been a long series of debates on this matter. As far as I can remember, year in, year out, we have discussed this issue ever since the idea of an inspectorate was floated by the Government. There was a very informative debate in which noble Lords participated on Report, whenthe Minister gave a very robust defence of the Government's position.
	However powerful the case made by the House of Lords, it ultimately remained for the Minister to convince her colleagues what was appropriate for this House. She has been able to do that, for which I am most grateful and thank her. I am glad that there is now a clear statement on the Government's intentions as well as from the inspectors on how they intend to proceed.
	I put on record the thanks of most, if not all, of my colleagues on these Benches for the work that the Minister has done in convincing her colleagues. Let us hope that we will have future opportunities to iron out issues that reflect what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has identified to see how we can put them right. My noble friend Lady Harris will comment on some of the amendments, but in the mean time I thank the Minister.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I have tabled a number of amendments in this large group. I added my name to Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 which, happily, have been overtaken by events. However, I wanted to draw your Lordships' attention to the necessity of all HMICs retaining their royal warrant. I would be most grateful for an assurance.
	I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 66 to 69 which are, once again, about the Audit Commission. But before I do so, I have a few questions for the Minister which refer to the same points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham with regard to Schedule 4A(2), looking at the issue from a police authority perspective. It is worth asking the questions to allow the Minister time to get an answer while I am speaking to Amendments Nos. 66 and 69.
	Does subsection (2)(2) of Amendment No. 17 also mean that HMIC will consult the bodies to be inspected? It was in the latest version of the Bill in Schedule 9(9)(3) on page 110, but it does not appear in this legislation, and I would like an explanation. With regard to subsection (3)(4) of AmendmentNo. 17, can the Minister say how the Secretary of State would envisage using such an order-making power, and for what purpose? Does it allow him to mandate joint inspections or just to say who the lead inspectorate will be and then leave it to the discretion of the Chief Inspector to decide? Specifically, will it allow the Secretary of State to specify that police authorities will be inspected by HMIC?
	I agree with the points made about the great range of the new amendments. It has been extremely difficult to find the detail in them, and I could not find anywhere a reference to inspection of police authorities. The old wording in the Bill on Report included reference to that. At page 24, Clause 29(3), they are one of the organisations listed as sitting within the criminal justice system, which would have fallen within the remit of the single inspectorate.At page 112, paragraph 12, which one of my amendments addresses, police authorities are listed as one of the bodies—CDRPs being the other—that would have been subject to joint inspection between the CJS inspectorate and the Audit Commission. But the new wording does not include reference to them. Although the wording itself is not new, the context is, which alters the way in which the wording might be read and needs to be examined afresh in light of the Government's amendments.
	I am sure that if the Minister is unable to answer these questions today, she will be able to do so at a later point, having read carefully what I have said in Hansard. But is she able to tell me how the new amendment will allow for inspection of police authorities?
	With my Amendments Nos. 64 and 65, I turn to the matter of enabling police authority expertise to be used in inspecting police authorities. It seems that I must continue to disagree with the Minister about whether current wording adequately allows for that. For instance, "sufficient expertise" implies quantity rather than quality, so does not necessarily mean that the chief inspector has access to the right sort of expertise. My amendment tries to address this issue. However, it also explicitly allows for the inclusion of police authority expertise in police authority inspections.
	I have explained before why I think that that is important, so I will not rehearse those arguments again. But I point out that it does not imply a cosy relationship, which the Minister seemed to suggest in our previous debate. I am suggesting that police authority expertise should contribute to police authority inspections, but certainly not be wholly responsible for them. It is certainly no more questionable than the idea that police officers should inspect police forces—which, indeed, they do. I do not believe that the Minister would question the professionalism and independence of HMIC.
	In an effort to come up with a compromise that might be more acceptable to the Government, I suggest that the Association of Police Authorities should be consulted by the chief inspector about ensuring that he has appropriate expertise available to him. This is a change to the previous suggestion that the APA should be able to nominate suitable people. It is just slightly different.
	With Amendments Nos. 66 to 69, I have been very busy checking the legislation. For the avoidance of confusion, my previous amendment was about the Audit Commission's role in best value. Best value appears in Section 24 of the Local Government Act 1999, where it says that HMIC will inspect police authorities for their compliance with best value. The Audit Commission has no role mentioned in that Act whatever.
	Amendments Nos. 66 to 69 address the involvement of the Audit Commission in police authority inspections. Nothing that the Minister has said has convinced me that it has the requisite knowledge or expertise to undertake this role. I know that the Minister is a great fan of its work with local authorities, and I acknowledge, as I have throughout, that it has a wealth of experience in this field, although I do not share his views about its total effectiveness. That aside, local authorities are not the same as police authorities. They have different functions and structures, and it is a mistake to think that techniques and frameworks used in inspecting local authorities can be applied to police authorities; they cannot.
	My second amendment would ensure that the Audit Commission sticks to what it knows about: auditing police authorities, not inspecting them. That is the very point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for which I was very grateful. In addition, however, I was rather taken aback to hear the noble Lord speaking at Second Reading on this section of the Bill. He said the amendment he was then taking forward, which is now part of the Bill, gave the Audit Commission a power to act jointly with the chief inspector, where the commissioner had no power to inspect. I am sorry, but if the Audit Commission has no legal remit to inspect, it has no business conducting inspections, joint or otherwise. My amendment seeks to make that plain.
	I have also made sure with this amendment that it is the chief inspector, not the Audit Commission, who decides that the involvement of the commission might be helpful—although in practice, because of my other amendments, that will be restricted to inspections of crime and disorder reduction partnerships.

Lord Lyell of Markyate: My Lords, I, too, am very grateful for the Government's clear change of heart in answer to the strong feelings expressed by this House. I admired the Minister's necessary performance asSt Sebastian, as arrow after arrow was fired in with, unfortunately, no support from anywhere.
	The question of motive was raised. I believe that the Minister sincerely and profoundly believed in what she was putting before the House and in what she was saying, and that she sincerely and profoundly believes in what is now being put in substitution. If I make some criticisms or probe the matter, it is in no sense an attack on her motive or sincerity and I hope that she will therefore forgive me more readily than she might otherwise have been prepared to.
	I tend to see things visually, as my St Sebastian image might have indicated. If one thought of the Times cartoonist Peter Brookes, one might see two cartoons. The first shows what the Home Secretary and the Home Office originally designed for the Bill: complete control from on high, with all the chief inspectors subordinated in the manner against which this House rebelled. The second cartoon, I am afraid, now shows the Home Secretary as a spider—but not the Minister, I am sure, unless she is a smaller spider—who, having been frustrated in the original objectives, has now been determined to tie up the inspectorates in red tape.
	I heard with pleasure the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, say today that it was the Government's objective to strip away bureaucracy in the Bill. I also heard the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, say that the object was to minimise additional work, and that the Government remained committed to a simplified inspection landscape. I have to confess that when I read the amendments that we are discussing and saw the enormous amount of consultation that is supposed to take place—although some distinguished commentators doubt that it will ever actually do so—I thought that this is not a simplified landscape at all, but an incredibly bureaucratic one. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what costing the Government have made of the extra bureaucrats who will be needed to carry out all this consultation and response to consultation.
	I am concerned that the power of the Home Office to give directions remains very great. I hope that the Government will not seek to put back, through the ping-pong process, any power for the Crown Prosecution Service to become judge and jury in their own cases and to impose penalties and level of penalties. I hope that has gone for good, at least as far as this Bill is concerned. Whether or not that is the case, it is extremely important that the inspectorates should remain independent. I hope that that will be acknowledged.
	I wish to make one or two points of detail. If we are to have a framework of consultation, we should bear in mind the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service, the whole prosecuting process and the Attorney-General are not the Government. Prosecutions are not carried out by government; they are carried out by the wholly independent prosecuting authorities. It is the absolute constitutional duty of the Attorney-General to ensure that that is the case and that it is protected. None the less, the Crown Prosecution Service must very properly work extremely closely with the police and the courts. I notice that at present there is no requirement for the Attorney-General, the DPP or anybody in the Crown Prosecution Service to be consulted in relation to inspections. That may be deliberate or it may be an oversight. Perhaps it could be thought about and the views of the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General inquired into.
	I fear that we are going down a wrong road, but I know that the noble Baroness sincerely believes in what she is doing.

Baroness Quin: My Lords, having spoken in last week's debate and expressed my concern about what the Government then proposed, and voted accordingly, I wish to put on record how much I welcome the statement by my noble friend the Minister this evening, for the various reasons that have been given. The proposal will ensure the co-ordination that is needed, and which I understand the various inspectors have willingly committed themselves to, and yet at the same time will eliminate any danger of important, separate issues being subsumed in a reorganisation of the kind that we discussed last week.
	I, too, accept that in some areas we may be talking about perception rather than reality. I certainly accept my noble friend's assurances that there was no government agenda to weaken the inspectorates, including the prisons inspectorate. Indeed, I did not suspect that that was the Government's motive in bringing forward the original proposals.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and thenoble Baroness who speaks for the Conservatives Opposition on these issues referred to the contributions that some noble Lords on the Government Benches had made. As a new Member of your Lordships' House, I say to my noble friend that I have not been emboldened by this experience to make me wish to repeat such rebellious behaviour regularly. I recognise that the measure that we are discussing represents a satisfactory outcome. I also recognise the efforts made by my noble friend and her colleagues in bringing about this solution.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I am struggling with the image evoked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate, of St Sebastian transfigured into a wicked spider, as it were. I thank the noble and learned Lord for that image, which will delight me for some time.
	I hope that I shall reassure noble Lords on these matters. As regards speed, bearing in mind the nature and extent of the debates that we have had in this House, we came to the view that, if there were to be a change, it should be proposed in this House at the earliest possible opportunity. I assure your Lordships that strenuous efforts were made, first, to resolve this issue, secondly, to draft amendments that were most likely to meet the concerns that noble Lords had expressed and, thirdly, to lay those amendments as swiftly as possible. It is to that end that I sought to give notice to Benches opposite that this was an endeavour that we were embarked on, although I was not absolutely confident about the timing of when it might come to fruition.
	I assure the House that I understand the difficulties that noble Lords might have in contemplating and considering the detailed amendments, but I hoped that the nature of those amendments would give noble Lords such pleasure that on this occasion—and I accept on this occasion only—I might just be forgiven for my haste. I particularly thank my noble friends, because we are once again in total charity, and it gives me pleasure to acknowledge that, particularly in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Acton. I agree with him that separation is always such dangerous sorrow.
	I will now go through the issues that noble Lords have raised, and I will deal first with consultation. Your Lordships will see that all the consultees in the list are in fact the consultees who are consulted bythe five inspectorates at the moment. The long list is similar to that which was in the Bill earlier. That is why I said that technical adjustments may have to be made. We are in consultation with the five inspectorates, and we will enter into dialogue with them to refine the consultation process in an appropriate way. In relation to the direction about the form of the programmes, that direction will be about the administrative form and not about the substantive content or the form of the inspection itself.
	I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who asked about the possible change in the well established recruitment process. I assure the noble Lord that we have no plans to change the well established recruitment process for the Chief Inspector of Prisons; we hope that similarly robust and vigorous independent-minded people will continue to inspect all our services for the foreseeable future. As I said earlier, if one looked at intent through history, one would see that that is clearly demonstrated. Given the fact that those who are seeking to recruit the new chief inspector came to entice the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, he need not fear that the brief that they were given was to find someone who was compliant. I assure him that there is anticipated to be no change.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, asked about the Chief Inspector of Constabulary and the requirement regarding police forces and police authorities. I hope that this will please the noble Baroness. We will expect the inspectors to consult police authorities in any event, but we can always make that a mandatory requirement by adding those bodies by order to the list of statutory consultees. As I said, we are in discussion with the inspectors about the consultation requirements.
	The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, questioned the meaning of "regular". We are not in any way altering by these provisions the existing inspection remits of the five chief inspectors; we are simply adding strengthened and improved joint working. Matters relating to the way in which each inspectorate conducts its own existing programmes would be better addressed in the individual contexts. We are not changing that. It will still be entirely open to each inspector to determine regularity of inspections, but with the added benefit of less duplication through increased joint working.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, asked about the retention of royal warrants. It flows from what I have just said that all inspectors will retain the royal warrants, as now, and there is no change. I am surprised that the noble Baroness did not immediately appreciate that none of the existing inspectorates will have their remit extended as a result of the government amendments. Accordingly, for now, there will be no provision for the inspection of police authorities or crime and disorder reduction partnerships. We will have to return to that issue at another time.
	While I know that the burden of doing so much can be high, I had hoped that my noble friend Lord Bassam had made it clear, in response to Amendment No. 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, that, as a result of the changes that we are making in Part 4, the provision for the Audit Commission to act jointly with the Inspectorate of Constabulary in inspecting police authorities is removed. I know that the noble Baroness was concerned about that and I had thought that we might have heard a whoop of delight when my noble friend said that. She may not have noticed the pleasure that that statement was intended to give her—but I give it to her now.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I had a sense of déjà vu when I saw these amendments on the Marshalled List, so much so that I feel not in the least bit inhibited by the fact that I missed the early remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, because I am sure that the arguments that she put forward were very similar to those that we heard in detail on Report.
	I agree with every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, said about why a balance of elected representatives is a critical part of the governance of police authorities. However, giventhe clear assurance from the Minister on Report that the Government saw this as important, clearly saying that it would be part of regulations, I did not feel it was appropriate to press the amendment again. We have that assurance. Subject to the Minister's statement that there is no intention to change it, then—unless we are being told that one of the opposition parties plans to dispense with the principle of political balance in the far future—we should surely accept what the Government have made clear.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, sadly not. I am grateful to the Minister for reiterating his stance, but it does not take us forward in anyway. It does not answer my key question of whythe Government feel they need the flexibility of secondary legislation if they have no intention of changing the current arrangements. I note that the Minister said that there may be something in the future.
	I am grateful to the Minister for stating once again that the principle of proportionality is as it was. However, the arrangements setting out political balance are currently in primary legislation. That is extremely important. I am not just advocating that something in primary legislation should remain setin stone for the sake of it. Key principles with a constitutional purpose should not be moved into secondary legislation for administrative convenience alone. It is fundamentally important that policing should remain non-party political, and that police authorities should be properly balanced to reflect and represent the full variety of views in the communities they serve. It is essential to the success of police authorities, and surely exactly the sort of key principle that should be clear in the Bill.
	Because I do not feel entirely confident that the Minister has reassured me as perfectly as I would loved to have been, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and I particularly congratulate him on his very ambitious tour d'horizon of the whole subject in exactly 10 minutes. It was quite an achievement. I am afraid that I am not going to offer as much practical advice as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge. For more than 20 years, I have been a vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, and I happen to think that this is one of the most important subjects that we can discuss. My interest in that group is clearly shown on the register.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, said, we have been compiling a report based on population and the MDGs. Naturally enough, the MDGs provide the framework of the consideration of the committee, which is producing the report. I have been sitting on the committee to hear the evidence with, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, says, Richard Ottaway as our chair. We are only at second draft stage at present, so people might have to wait a bit for the final report. I know that it is keenly awaited with much interest, and I am sure that what I say here will benefit from the evidence that we have heard.
	As we know, the achievement of the MDGs will be extremely difficult, and in many cases impossible, in the time scale envisaged. In addition, it will be very much more difficult to achieve almost all thosegoals without the assistance of some input from the field of reproductive health and considerations of population. As part of this, some of us are trying to reassert the good intentions of the ICPD Cairo conference agreement of 1994, which has already been referred to. I will frame some of my following remarks around some of the MDGs, and I hope to show how Africa, and the agreed aim of poverty reduction, would benefit from a substantially increased regard to reproductive health.
	First, we should remind ourselves that the footprint of the developed nations is very much included in MDG 7 on environmental sustainability. For example, there are issues such as fresh water and carbon emissions, which apply globally. In our group's report, the "northern" scale of consumption and the damage that we do to the planet is acknowledged and must be borne in mind when we are talking about the problems of Africa. In MDG 8, our responsibility for being involved in global partnerships for development is set out. That includes fair trade and finance and also co-operating in many fields with developing countries.
	To address the Unstarred Question directly, we should be offering parts of Africa the means—of which reproductive health is but a small part—and helping to create the conditions, background and infrastructure where countries can benefit from and use what reproductive health can offer. There is absolutely no coercion, but there is evidence that sub-Saharan Africa could eventually have the benefit of the demographic dividend in the distant future, but there is much to be put in place to achieve that.
	I will mention in more detail than the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that we are very fortunate that the work and the lobbying that have been done to get reproductive health recognised in the MDGs have recently borne fruit. The new target that has been added and adopted under the heading MDG 5 is,
	"to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015".
	The UN General Assembly took note of that in a report by the Secretary-General and implicitly endorsed that recommendation. It should be noted the after that happened the United States said from the floor that it did not agree with what had been added and noted. I understand that regardless of that, the endorsement by the UN General Assembly will enable universal access to reproductive health to be monitored within the framework of the MDGs.
	Further detailed work is needed to measure progress in this particular field by framing and agreeing indicators by which monitoring of progress can meaningfully take place. Given that the theoretical deadline is 2015, I hope that agreement can be reached fairly swiftly on what those measures will be. A further two years' delay would be unacceptable and I hope that DfID can make sure that progress continues.
	Defining the age parameters, for example, for the contraceptive prevalence rate and for the unmet need for family planning will be very difficult; but when agreed, both should be invaluable international measures as to the progress that is being made. The variable of unmet need in the developing world, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, of those who would like to be able to control their fertility but who are unable to do so has varying estimates, but is invariably more than 100 million, sometimes double that. It will be extremely valuable to have an internationally agreed figure.
	A large proportion of that figure is estimated to be in Africa. In the report of the parliamentary group that I referred to, there will be considerable evidence from both written and oral sources on the direction of causation and the relationship of severe poverty to population size. In this short debate, it is not possible to go into too much detail.
	Similarly, addressing the subject of the Question as to what steps the Government might take can be done only in general terms here. I hope that, following the report I mentioned, the Government through DfID can take an even stronger lead internationally than at present in putting the issue of population into the wider field of our concerns, where it belongs. The additional target for MDGs will provide the perfect platform. I am not forgetting that as much of the impetus for that as is possible needs to come from the developing countries—sometimes the poorest—which will understandably manifest more immediate and urgent needs.
	We need to help win the argument on population, in both the long and short terms, on the basis of evidence and need; and we need to ensure that sufficient resources are made available, both financial and tangible. One problem that arose during the evidence that was heard for the all-party group's report was that some donor countries made the allocation of resources under a very wide and general heading and it was increasingly difficult to identify for what purpose some funds were actually being used.
	I usually try to avoid quoting numbers in this field, particularly in a debate such as this, but some of the sub-Saharan statistics, if the continuing rates of increase are maintained, are remarkable. The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, mentioned figures for Uganda and Niger. If the present rate of increase in population in Niger continues, from the present level of 14 million it might reach 50 million by 2050—and it is a very small country. It would be too much to expect that education services or food supply could begin to match such an increase. Similar examples could be given.
	After the good intentions of the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, the issue of population growth gradually lost prominence. That trend led to the under-appreciation of population size and growth alone. A present theme might be that numbers do count, at the same time as we are challenged to "make every person count". I hope that when the all-party group's report on population and the MDGs is published shortly, it will be studied with keen attention by all.
	Perhaps I may end with the encouraging use of the word "population" and the specific endorsement of that issue in a quotation from Mr Kofi Annan. He stated:
	"The Millennium Developments Goals, particularly the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not squarely addressed. And that means stronger efforts to promote women's rights, and greater investment in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning".

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend on raising this issue, which is important not only to the people of the continent of Africa but also to the viability of the human race on planet Earth.
	Why should we be bothered about Africa's population increase? After all, Africa covers 22 per cent of the world's total land area, yet has only 13 per cent of the world's total population. There are three basic problems. First, much of Africa's land is unproductive—particularly the deserts, which include the Sahara and the Kalahari. Secondly, climate change means that drought conditions now occur more frequently there. Thirdly, projections showthat Africa's population, which is currently around 800 million, is likely to double over 33 years.
	According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the populations of some countries are expected to triple by 2050: those of Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Uganda. Between now and 2050, four of the nine countries expected to account for half the world's total projected population increase are in Africa—Nigeria, the DRC, Uganda and Ethiopia—and each of those will add more people to the planet than the world's most populous nation, China.
	This increase in population will create additional demands, particularly on water and food supplies. Let us take Ethiopia as an example. The World Resources Institute tells us that in 1950 its population was18 million; by 2002, this had risen to 66 million; and in 2025 it is likely to be 113 million—a sixfold increase in 75 years.
	That creates another problem. In many parts of Africa, population growth, with more mouths to feed, is leading to soil depletion. Farmers are reducing the length of fallow periods or doing away with them altogether to make it possible to plant more crops. Also, the larger the population, the more firewood that is needed for cooking and the greater the need to cut down forests to provide more land for crops. The resultant reduced firewood availability has led to animal dung being used for fuel rather than for fertiliser. Marginal lands, which are not really suitable for agriculture, have increasingly been used and protected areas encroached upon. Sharing farms between sons has led to a reduction in farm size to the point where they are inadequate, and many people become landless.
	It is difficult to believe that, even if climate, agricultural and other remedial measures were successfully implemented in Ethiopia, food supplies could be secured in the face of such a massive population increase and the already incurred environmental deterioration. Even if on a global scale an effective reduction in adverse climate effects were achieved, it is doubtful whether Ethiopia or other countries south of the Sahara could achieve food security if the population continued to grow as projected.
	An additional problem is that most of the countries with the fastest growing populations are poor. Indeed, that is one reason why fertility rates are so high, with each woman producing, on average, five, six or seven children. They know that, because of poor health facilities, some of their offspring are likely to die, and parents see children as the only guarantee of help as they themselves get older and more frail.
	However, the news is not all bad. Some countries in Africa already have fertility rates nearing European levels. South Africa has reduced its fertility rate to2.8; Botswana to 3.0; Namibia to 3.3; and Lesotho to 3.4. Tragically, this progress towards stabilising populations has been dealt a body blow by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
	Noble Lords will know of my special interest in Botswana and of my declared interests in the register. Botswana faces a particular population challenge. The country is large—larger than France and Belgium put together—but has a population of just 1.7 million. Over 30 per cent of the population of Botswana are HIV positive. In one respect they are fortunate to live in that enlightened country because the Government have built up healthcare facilities and are able to afford to provide the medicines to help each infected person live longer. However, the UN says that the country's population is slowly reducing.
	A few years ago, in a nationwide address, the President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, startled his people when he said, "Our country faces extinction". The country is grappling to educate the population, particularly the younger generation, to change behaviour patterns. Like other countries in Africa, Botswana is promoting the ABC campaign to prevent more people catching HIV: A for abstinence; B for be faithful—have only one partner; and C for use condoms. Fortunately, even the Roman Catholic Church has joined in this campaign. It is to be congratulated on recognising the seriousness of the problem.
	Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa also have high rates of HIV and shrinking populations. Elsewhere on the continent the recording of HIV levels is patchy because testing is not routinely carried out. While lower rates of HIV are published for other countries in Africa, we cannot be sure of the true picture. Uganda, one of the most heavily populated countries in the continent, was thought at one time to have the highest incidence of HIV. It was one of the first countries to recognise the problem and to take steps to tackle it, even though the amount spent on healthcare per person was, and remains, very low. Unfortunately, Uganda today still has a very high fertility rate of 6.8 children per woman and the population is soaring.
	So what can the UK Government do about Africa's problem of increasing population? Education is certainly one part of the answer. Encouraging a better role for women so that they are not seen just as baby-making machines is another. Reinstating family planning in our development programme is vital, as my noble friend said. We need to achieve worldwide trade agreements which will drive up average incomes in Africa to see whether there is a direct link between improving incomes and reducing fertility rates.
	In their book Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, D. H. Meadows et al paint a picture of how, under certain circumstances, population growth slows then levels off at less than 8 billion wordwide; pollution peaks, then falls before it causes irreversible damage; by the end of the current century there is enough food for everyone; and the sustainable society has been ushered in. Here are some of the circumstances which must be fulfilled to reach that goal: all people must be assured by their societies of acceptance, respect, material security, and care in their old age, no matter how few children they have; all couples must have access to effective birth control technologies; and all couples must decide to limit their family size to two children. Unfortunately, the authors say that the last two of these conditions needed to be achieved by 2002, the year of the simulation. Those are not the only conditions. The book also says that the world must develop powerful technologies for pollution abatement, land yield enhancement, land protection, and conservation of non-renewable resources, all at once.
	The model used to develop this scenario does not take into account possible wars, labour strikes, corruption, drug addiction, crime and terrorism, many of which have plagued and continue to plague Africa. So, we must all work to help Africa stabilise its population. It will not be easy.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, this is a very timely debate. I would go further than making the usual genuflection towards congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Taverne. He has hit a lot of nails on the head and, without any collusion, I shall make many of the same points. I declare an interest as cofounder and vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Africa, although what I am about to say does not purport in any way to be a collective view.
	My central theme is why Africa does not fit what I shall call the rather benign DfID model. Poverty is clearly a function of GDP per head and income distribution. To cure it, we must increase the sustainable GDP rate of growth and achieve better distribution. Everybody ought to be able to agree on that. In passing, I wish that all NGOs were as economically literate as my noble friend Lord Rea. The questions are: what creates economic development, and what explains African exceptionalism compared with the globalisation from which it seems to have excluded itself?
	There is another side to the coin, of course. Some things make growth less likely—excessive population growth, in particular. There have been hugely impressive technical studies. Attention has already been drawn to "Population and Poverty", published by the United Nations Population Fund in 2003, which quotes a study by Eastwood and Lipton showing that a reduction of 5 per 1,000 in the net birth rate can increase GDP by 1.36 per cent for a country with a median GDP per capita.
	So we come to the puzzle—it is not too much of a puzzle, but DfID find it a puzzle: the reasons for African exceptionalism. What creates the virtuous circle of east Asia—which is not a global virtuous circle which everyone can get to via some inevitable Darwinian process—whereby the number of births per woman reduces and the GDP per head rises sustainably? How on earth do countries such as Niger, Mali and Uganda get there? They have six, seven or eight births per woman whereas the replacement rate, as in the UK, is nearer two. There is a close correlation, if you look at the statistics for all 190-odd countries, between births per woman and the scatter diagram of GDP per head and its growth.
	I am not making a fetish of two births per woman. That is a long way off, given the social and anthropological reasons for many people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, wanting to have a lot of children—leaving aside those who do not want to have children and do not have access to birth control. Declining fertility via family planning programmes make a dramatic improvement. Sexual mores are unfortunately changing for the worse among many young people. We all have to use the euphemism "family planning", but we ought to get beyond euphemisms. There is no sign of "family" with precocious sexual behaviour from the age of six, seven or eight in many parts of Africa.
	If we are going to do anything to improve African living standards, we must clearly proclaim the importance of reducing births per woman as central to our development strategy. That is why I am sorry to say that I find it little short of scandalous that chapter 5 of the White Paper Making Governance Work for the Poor—which was published in May 2006 and does not have a narrow scope; it has an excellent chapter on climate change, for example—contains not one word on the question of excessive population growth. Why is that? The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, has come up with two ideas. He mentioned religion, I think, and I would add to that the fear of neo-colonialism. Those may be explanations. If my facts are wrong, I hope that my noble friend—to whom I have given notice of my line of argument and the sources I am citing—will correct me. If I am accurate, however, the next question is why we are so silent and mealy-mouthed in our profile on this. I am not talking about the Government making erudite submissions in obscure seminars but about the fact that nothing is said loud and clear in the central reports published by DfID on behalf of Her Majesty's Government or, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, mentioned, in the report of the Commission for Africa.
	If the reason is religious sensitivity, we should tell the truth on the basis of rigorous economic analysis. We should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. We should be as robust in dealing with pseudo-religious claims as we are in dealing with false claims of neo-colonialism. I am not anti-religious—I am a member of the Church of England—but I am appalled by the way in which we seem to be censoring ourselves and not saying what needs to be said on this subject.
	I welcome and echo what my noble friend Lord Rea said about the alarming connection between population growth and desertification and the destruction of habitat. In Madagascar, where I was this summer, 80 per cent of the rainforest has been slashed and burnt in the past 40 years. There is now bare rock in many places and the habitat of animals such as lemurs is shrinking. I shall come back in a second to the problem of disaffected youths—the young men who hang around the streets of Antananarivo. A compelling study by an academic offshoot of the UN demonstrates very vividly how the conflict in Darfur arose essentially from the destruction of habitat in the nomadic areas, which led to migration and inevitable clashes over land at the most sensitive junction of so many ethnic and religious traditions, leaving aside the odd legacy of straight lines on the map from the colonial era in Sudan and other places.
	As noble Lords have said, getting Africa to change is not easy. The recipe is all too reminiscent of the famous recipe for jugged hare that begins, "First, catch your hare". That is very difficult. There has to be dialogue with the African Union and with all parts of Africa, and it will have to be robust. Unemployment may be one way into it, and it is absolutely necessary to consider that, but the other way may be to look at migration, given that a state governor in Nigeria said that if more aid did not come there, more people would come to Europe. People are putting that on the agenda and we must be honest and robust in addressing it.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, I echo the congratulations expressed to my noble friend Lord Taverne on his brilliant speech, in which he argued most effectively that a reduction in the rate of population growth is an effective means of promoting development in Africa. That sentiment has been echoed by every other noble Lord who has spoken.
	Last year, the UN report on population challenges and development goals concluded that reduction of birth rates led to a "demographic bonus" whereby the number of people of working age increased relative to those of the children and the elderly, contributing significantly to economic growth and poverty reduction. But the UN study of world population prospects in 2004 showed that, over the last 30 years, the lowest reductions in fertility occurred in 12 African high-fertility countries, as has been mentioned. These countries are forecast to have the highest population growth, coupled with the lowest chance of reaching the millennium development goals, particularly as regards infant and maternal mortality and universal primary education.
	The Africa Commission said that Africa's population is exploding and that millions are migrating to the slums of cities, where the young are unemployed and disaffected. Yet it fails to link the population explosion with Africa's underdevelopment or to emphasise the negative feedback between high rates of growth and the acute environmental risks affecting the continent. That point was mentioned by several noble Lords. The commission recommends that donors should do all that they can to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive services, including the provision of an extra $300 million in commodity requirements. But it offers no suggestions about how to overcome the inertia or obstruction by Governments and religious organisations to these programmes, a matter to which my noble friend Lord Taverne referred.
	There have been shortages of condoms in Africa. Last year, there was a particular shortage in Uganda, to which my noble friend referred. I think that that shortage was partly caused by the American plan for AIDS relief driven by the religious right, which emphasises abstinence. The DfID profile on Uganda rightly praises the Government of President Museveni for reducing the prevalence of HIV and AIDS from 18 per cent to 6 per cent in a decade. But many women are still unable to exercise freedom of choice over their own fertility. One-third of Ugandan women say that they would like to stop or postpone having children if they could. They are among the100 million to 200 million whom the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, referred to who want to control their fertility but who do not have the means of doing so.
	According to UN estimates—and this was also referred to by my noble friend—Uganda's population may treble from 42 million in 2005 to 127 million in 2050. With similar increases in other countries in that region, climate change—which is linked to population increase, as the noble Lord, Lord Jones, remarked and is likely to reduce agricultural production because of extended desertification, lack of water, loss of soil fertility and reduction of crop yields—could bring about conflicts over resources, mass starvation and large-scale emigration long before the mid-century arrives. Droughts have increased in frequency in the Horn from one in eight years to one in three, and there are too many cattle for the carrying capacity of the people, but too few to feed the increasing number of mouths. In Somalia, the desperation of people living on the edge of survival is already reinforcing the growth of radical Islam. Even war-torn Somalia, without a functioning Government or health service, is estimated to have a population increase from8 million in 2005 to 21 million in 2050, while the combined populations of Kenya and Tanzania will double over the same period to 150 million. It is inconceivable that east Africa can sustain increases of this order.
	The question is: what can the countries themselves and the donor community do to avert the looming catastrophe? A far greater emphasis on the MDG of promoting gender equality and empowering women would be an essential part of any strategy, because if women controlled their own fertility they would not have very large families. Bill Gates wrote in the Independent the other day:
	"Abstinence is not an option for some poor men and girls who have no choice but to marry at an early age...And using condoms is not a decision that a woman can make by herself; it depends on a man".
	I would argue that abstinence is in any case an unworkable policy and contrary to human nature, but if women themselves decided when to get married and could decide on whether contraceptives should be used, both population growth and HIV/AIDS infections would be reduced, as has been remarked, and women liberated from the burden and health risks of constant childbearing would be able to make a far greater contribution to the economy, especially in agriculture.
	In fact, 120 million women in sub-Saharan Africa are illiterate and most African women have less access to land and education than ever before. Elizabeth Chacko of George Washington University points out that Kerala in India has a low fertility rate compared with that of India as a whole because the women of Kerala have a relatively high status, are well educated and are integrated into the workforce. She says that whether a woman can read, can understand what methods of contraception are available to her and is empowered to use them can have a great impact on fertility rates.
	DfID says that one of its key priorities is to get more girls into school, leading to greater economic growth, less poverty and reduced fertility, and that is an important contribution towards attaining the MDG of promoting gender equality. But six years ago DfID also said in an excellent report on poverty and women's empowerment that education alone would not be enough—inequalities needed to be tackled across the board in economic, political, social and cultural life. The Beijing World Conference on Women of 1995 identified 12 critical areas of concern, of which one was unequal access to education and training—one very important one, but not the only one. So I suggest to the Minister that it is time for DfID to review the strategy for poverty elimination and the empowerment of women and to upgrade accordingly its country programmes for Africa. That is not only the right policy for its own sake, but the best way to harness the talent and energies of half the population of Africa and to prevent a Malthusian catastrophe from overwhelming the continent within two generations.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I must apologise to the House for not being here at the start of the debate. I had to attend a funeral and, needless to say, the train was late. I pray your Lordships' indulgence. As the time for this debate has also changed, I asked my noble friend Lady Seccombe to come to my rescue. I am most grateful to her for agreeing and for filling me in on the very impressive introduction from the noble Lord, Lord Taverne.
	I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, for giving us the opportunity to debate this very important Question. Current population projections suggest that Africa's population will double again within a generation—as it did during the previous generation—while the figures in some individual sub-Saharan countries are even more dramatic. Despite high mortality rates, there is no evidence that points to the rate of population growth slowing.
	Such sharp demographic change brings with it many problems and prevents solutions being found to existing problems—not least, economic ones. As long as population growth continues at the current rate, it will be very hard to achieve economic growth in real terms. Even where countries are seeing GDP growth, that is more often than not offset by even greater population expansion. Rapid population growth therefore potentially represents one of the biggest barriers to tackling poverty. Continuing to throw money and aid at the problem, while admirable in sentiment, will struggle to have any lasting effect unless the population explosion ends.
	There are equally marked demographic links to hunger and starvation. Population growth is leading to over-exploitation of farmland. More than 80 per cent of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is now severely degraded, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jones. Nutrients are disappearing from the soil because of over-use due to the pressure of feeding an ever-increasing number of people. As the cycle continues, African farmland will become incapable of sustaining its already under-nourished people.
	Many noble Lords have rightly stressed that the pressure on the land also causes other problems, such as deforestation, inadequate supplies of fresh water and, inevitably, climate change, as the noble Lords, Lord Rea and Lord Lea, mentioned. In Ethiopia, for example, nearly half the country was forested only a century ago. Now only 4 per cent of the country is covered with trees, as the land is required to help feed the population. As the population grows, it will also create new difficulties. It will become increasingly more difficult to maintain adequate numbers of schools and hospitals and to improve these and other basic services.
	The fertility rates in Africa are astonishing. In the rest of the world, including developing nations in Latin America and Asia, birth rates have steadily declined to an average of 2.3 children per mother. Most nations will experience only modest population growth in the next few decades. Yet, in large portions of Africa, the position is very different. In Uganda, as the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, mentioned, the average mother gives birth to seven children. This remarkable fertility rate has been constant for more than 30 years. Are the Government aware of these birth rates, and do they accept that the continent simply cannot support the numbers? Given that the population of Africa is set to increase from around 750 million today to nearly 1.7 billion people by 2050, does the Minister agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rea, that such a development would place a huge strain on natural resources and the environment?
	Fewer than one in five married women in Uganda have access to contraception. This is a very typical cross-section. What practical steps are the Government taking to improve the awareness of birth control in Africa? Can we expect any increase in the availability of contraception? Does the Minister agree that it is often the poorest and less educated women who have the least access to family-planning services? As the poorest and less educated women have larger families, unlike the educated women in Kerala, whom the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned, what can the Government do to tackle this problem?
	I recently returned from South Africa, where I had the opportunity to study the Anglo-American programme which raises awareness of, and provides treatment for, AIDS for all its employees. Run by the very enlightened Dr Brian Brink, this excellent programme has been in place for several years, and works in various ways. It focuses on prevention, which is so important. The programme ranges from practical measures, such as the distribution of contraception, to behaviour-based education and targeting young audiences. Does the Minister accept that the frightening spread of HIV shares many roots with uncontrolled population growth, and that there can and should be a similar approach to both? Will the Government look into the impressive Anglo-American programme developed by Dr Brian Brink and encourage others to follow?
	Some of the figures relating to population growth that we have heard from many noble Lords today are so striking that there must be an appreciation of the fact that urgent measures are needed. Without the stabilisation of its population, Africa will find it impossible to address and to resolve many of the issues that noble Lords have clearly identified today. This is especially true of the economic problems that have attracted so much recent popular interest all over the world.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, for securing this debate and to other noble Lords for their valuable contributions. I also welcome the recent series of parliamentary hearings by the APPG on population, development and reproductive health which have helped to raise the profile of this issue. I pay tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, for his sterling work in the APPG, and for the group's work for many years to ensure that this important issue does not slip down the political agenda.
	Population—people—are at the centre of the Government's business. The biggest obstacles to population stabilisation in Africa are poverty, lack of sexual and reproductive health rights and lack of access to basic services. We are certainly aware of the birth rates. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, that sexual and reproductive health are an important part of this Government's international development policy. However, discussion about limiting population growth has to be firmly based in a rights context. Underlying high levels of population growth is deep-rooted gender inequality. Women's low status, lack of decision-making power and control, poor access to information and care, restricted mobility, early age of marriage, and low political priority and resources all contribute to high fertility rates by limiting women's ability to make informed choices to ensure healthy sexual and reproductive lives. As the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, said, it is the poorest women who have the fewest choices. The attainment of universal sexual and reproductive health rights underpins the achievement of the millennium development goals on poverty reduction, maternal and child mortality, gender empowerment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The noble Viscount is right that we have to create conditions and means whereby sexual and reproductive health can thrive.
	Like the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, I warmly welcomethe new target in the MDG framework to includethe International Conference on Population and Development goal of universal access to reproductive health by 2015. Indeed, the UK worked very hard to achieve that outcome and strongly supports inclusion of this target. One indicator for consideration of the new target was the unmet need for family planning. The Secretary-General recommended inclusion of this in his report that was noted by the UN General Assembly in October. Sadly, the Holy See and USA raised some last minute objections, and negotiations to ensure inclusion of the target and to agree appropriate monitoring indicators are continuing. However, we are committed to work on this diligently because we want to ensure the appropriate outcome.
	The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and others have rightly mentioned that the US and parts of the Church heavily promote abstinence-only programmes as a response to preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. DfID does not promote abstinence-only messages as a strategy for HIV prevention and pregnancy reduction for young people. The noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, mentioned ABC—abstinence, be faithful, correct and consistent condom use. DfID promotes the full ABC message as a balanced strategy for HIV prevention and pregnancy reduction for young people, but I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that for many women abstinence is not an option. I deeply regret that in Ethiopia, for example, the loss of nearly US$500,000 per year of US funding to the Ethiopian Family Guidance Association, is equivalent to the loss of reproductive health services to 500,000 men and women in urban areas every year.
	Marie Stopes International lost $60,000 and hadto close several health posts. Funding cuts have caused cutbacks or discontinuations in emergency contraceptive programmes, outreach services, voluntary counselling and testing for HIV. However, DfID is actively addressing that through increased attention to improving funding for abortion and sexual and reproductive health, including family planning and male and female condoms.
	Better sexual and reproductive health and poverty reduction is a virtuous circle. Education, better health and greater rights for women and girls enhance choice and opportunity. Fewer and better spaced births improve maternal and child health. Families can invest more in their children. Slower population growth means that countries can invest more per head in basic services. All this helps to reduce poverty. Efforts to slow population growth and reduce poverty are mutually reinforcing.
	On the White Paper, I am pleased to inform noble Lords that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population Development and Reproductive Health took part in the consultation process. However, I believe they recognised that not every subject that was raised in the consultation process could be dealt with fully. The White Paper takes account of population changes as part of its wider review of environmental and economic pressures, and a key part of the White Paper is about the delivery of basic services, including health and education to poor people. Better sexual and reproductive health is and will remain an essential element of this. I can assure noble Lords that the Government, in the words of my noble friend Lord Lea, are not mealy-mouthed or secretive about population or about sexual and reproductive health. Indeed, we have a very loud voice in the UN and the EU, as well as in our bilateral discussions with countries in Africa, as I will seek to demonstrate. The African Union itself recently held a meeting of health Ministers on sexual health and reproduction, and those Ministers are determined to keep these issues high on the political agenda.
	In Africa, as elsewhere, DfID is keen to contribute to poverty reduction by supporting country-ledand country-owned policies and strategies. Where appropriate, our preferred way of supporting development in Africa is to provide budgetary support to national governments' overall plans and budgets. Within that context we can then support governments as they define and deliver their own priorities, including basic health and education services, and reduce barriers to accessing those services. Prioritising issues such as sexual and reproductive health in national planning processes such as poverty reduction strategies is critical. That is why in countries like Sierra Leone we are helping donors and the Government to include performance indicators for sexual and reproductive health at the highest level. In addition, in a number of African countries we are directly supporting long-term investments to rebuild and strengthen health systems. In Malawi, for example, DfID's emergency human resources programme is improving incentives for the recruitment and retention of health staff and enabling a significant expansion of domestic training capacity. We are also supporting a Marie Stopes International partner which is delivering services to women onthe ground, precisely because we understand the importance of family planning.
	Access to good quality sexual and reproductive health information, services and supplies, including family planning, is central to giving people more choice over family spacing and size. These help both to stabilise population growth and to tackle AIDS. I must say that I rather like the idea of a free condom with every bottle of Coke. In Mozambique, DfID is investing over £13 million to increase access to reproductive and sexual health services. In Sierra Leone, DfID is considering a joint programme with the World Bank to improve sexual, reproductive and child health. Improving access to family planning will be a key component from the outset. The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, asked about the simple but important condom. For the past 10 years, DfID has been the fourth largest provider of condoms to developing countries, supporting the distribution of around 150 million condoms annually. DfID has provided nearly £4 million for condoms and hormonal contraceptives in Ethiopia, £500,000 for a social marketing programme to maintain family planning services in DRC, and nearly £2 million for maintaining access to family planning services for women with HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe. DfID is providing the vast majority of condoms for distribution through the public sector and social marketing in Ghana, and 80 per cent of the condoms in Nigeria. In addition to our direct support for partner governments, DfID supports the global efforts of UNFPA and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. We are currently providing £80 million over four years to UNFPA and£19.5 million to IPPF between 2004 and 2006.
	Noble Lords have clearly demonstrated in their remarks that the unmet need for family planning is enormous. Some 137 million women who have expressed a desire to space or limit their family size are not using any form of contraception. This year alone an estimated 19 million women and girls will face an unintended and unwanted pregnancy. Many will suffer the deadly consequences of unsafe abortion, from which nearly 70,000 will die and many others will be left with long-term debilitating injuries. The UK has therefore taken the lead and, in February 2006, the Government committed an initial £3 million to the safe abortion action fund developed by the IPPF, which aims to reduce the 13 per cent of maternal deaths which result from unsafe abortion.
	The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred to the DfID publication of 2000. Last year there was an evaluation across all DfID work looking at gender and the empowerment of women in relation to the achievement of the MDGs. One of the outcomes is that a senior management team is working to ensure that empowerment of women and gender are mainstreamed. Yes, an evaluation of the 2000 strategy would be interesting, but DfID believes that it is much more important to ensure that we are doing the job and empowering women. I will write to the noble Lord with further information about the evaluation.
	My noble friend Lord Lea is absolutely right—it is important that data and analysis about population dynamics and their consequences are made available, disseminated and taken into account in the development of policy. DfID is currently working with the William and Flora Hewlitt Foundation and the Population Reference Bureau to convene an October seminar at DfID on poverty reduction and economic growth, the role of population dynamics and reproductive health. Earlier this year my honourable friend Gareth Thomas attended the population conference in Paris, which highlighted many of the links between demographic change and poverty reduction.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, demonstrated, population growth in Africa, the environment and climate change are inextricably linked and they are clearly adversely affected by poverty. This was recognised by the Commission for Africa, which clearly considered both population and sexual and reproductive health, although I recognise that it was not considered as fully as noble Lords might have wished. But that is precisely why the focus of DfID's policy is the elimination of poverty. It is also clear that when women have full sexual and reproductive health and rights they are able to participate more fully in education, sustainable livelihoods, markets and the economy, decision-making and the political processes.
	As mentioned by my noble friend, increased migration is also a result of both poverty and population growth. In September, I participatedin the UN high-level dialogue on international migration and development and there is now real recognition that development plays an important role in tackling the causes which compel people to migrate and that migration could be a positive force for development.
	The UK Government remain firmly committed to the stabilisation of population in Africa. We will seek to ensure that the achievements we have seen to date are consolidated and continued. We will work with others to ensure that critical constraints, both at the global policy level and at the country level, are overcome. I understand that the Germans, in both their EU and G8 presidencies, will focus on Africa, so there may be room there to develop this work.
	But although we will continue to play our part, it is also the responsibility of African Governments to take leadership to address this issue. That is why we are putting our resources into their development plans and channelling them through their systems. The UK has shown continuous leadership and lobbied at the highest level for full attention to sexual and reproductive health and rights, including family planning. I can assure the House that we will continue to do so.